


No Saints, No Sinners

by JustJReally



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hell Wins the Apocalypse (Good Omens), Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fluff and Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, not so much 'fluff and angst' as 'fluff in an angsty situation' but whatever I'll tag it, this is much less dark than the tags imply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24579166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJReally/pseuds/JustJReally
Summary: Hell wins the War. Crowley and Aziraphale find their own side.ORYou know that one tumblr post about going to Hell only to fall into the arms of your demonic partner? It's that, that's the fic.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 109





	No Saints, No Sinners

**Author's Note:**

> This diverges from canon after Crowley's left the bookshop, while Aziraphale's pinballing around looking for a body. Adam slipped and accidentally kickstarted the apocalypse, Hell took advantage of his antichrist powers in order to win. By the time Adam came back to himself and tried to stop things it was too late, Hell had won.  
> (Adam did manage to protect Tadfield, but the rest of the world is very apocalypsed)

That was it, then.

The world had ended.

Hell had won.

It wasn't that Aziraphale didn't care, obviously.

It was just that- well.

After telling everyone he could think of, _repeatedly_ , that he knew a way out of Armageddon, a way that no one would get hurt, only to be met with scorn…

He knows he should be panicking, or mourning Heaven’s loss, but all he can feel is a certain bitter vindication, and possibly the desire to scream _Maybe you should have listened to me, hm?_ at the top of his lungs.

Or, not scream it. But Gabriel is a few paces in front of him, part of a line of handcuffed angels slowly shuffling toward whatever punishment awaits the losing side, post-Armageddon, and Aziraphale thinks that, before the demons split them up for good, he’ll say that to Gabriel as pleasantly as possible.

Besides, imagining that little bit of revenge while being manhandled through the depths, and the bureaucracy, of Hell, guarded by a bunch of demons who take every opportunity to taunt and prod at him… It may not be productive, but it does make him feel better. 

The line stops its slow shuffle because of some problem a few yards down the hallway; Aziraphale can hear a muffled argument but he can't make out any words. It's the fifth time this has happened, so Aziraphale doesn’t think much of it.[1] That is, until the line resumes shuffling, he draws closer to the source of the noise, and realizes he recognizes one of the voices doing the arguing.

“-just take your break,” Crowley says, smoothly, “I’ll stay here and… mark that the prisoners used this hallway? Is that what you’re doing? And then when I find the angel I’m looking for you can come back and resume this… no doubt interesting and important task.”

“Don’t get a break,” replies whoever he’s talking to. If a pile of rocks could speak, and were also evil, they would sound like this demon.

 _He’s going to get himself killed_ , Aziraphale thinks, concern for Crowley overriding the rest of his situation. He speeds up, jostling into Gabriel, who doesn’t move any faster.

“Well,” Crowley says, “We just won the War, and I, for one, think ‘breaks’ should be a benefit of that. So-”

The line rounds the corner from a dingy hallway into a dingy, slightly wider hallway. There’s a demon who looks exactly like he sounds standing at the end of the hall, holding a clipboard that seems disproportionately small in his hand.

Standing next to that demon is Crowley.

His face is covered in ash, and there’s a huge tear in his right sleeve, and he’s alive.

Aziraphale stops dead in his tracks. The line behind him stumbles to a halt, with a great deal of cursing, mostly from their demon escort.

Crowley looks up. “Well, look at that,” he says to the rock demon, as though this sort of thing happened every day, “Here he is, didn’t even need to wait around.” He saunters the short distance down the hall and stops a few feet in front of Aziraphale.

And Aziraphale knows that, no matter what Crowley had said in the bandstand, they’re on opposite sides now. Clearly, with one of them in chains waiting to be tortured and the other with what looks like a medal pinned to his chest and a satisfied smile on his face. But at that moment, the only thing that matters to Aziraphale is that he’s alive. So instead of everything he’d planned to say to Crowley when he saw him again, all he can do is whisper the demon’s name in helpless relief.

There’s a flicker of an expression across Crowley’s face, passing too quickly for most people to realize it had happened. But Aziraphale has known Crowley for six millennia, and sees Crowley’s relief and hope for what they are. It’s what keeps him from flinching when Crowley takes another step forward, so quickly that the demon guarding Aziraphale almost drops her spear attempting to get it between the two of them. “Do you remember France, in 1761?” Crowley snarls.

1761\. They’d met at a party in some minor noble’s house, and wound up faking a duel in the middle of the main hall to distract attention from a lovely couple they’d met who were planning to run away together- Understanding dawns so quickly Aziraphale has to struggle to keep his face neutral. He nods stiffly.

“Good.” He snakes one arm past the spear and makes a grab for Aziraphale’s handcuffs, but the gesture is hampered by the fact that there is a spear in his way.

“You’re not allowed to just kidnap prisoners just because you helped with Armageddon, Crowley,” the demon attached to the spear says, sounding bored.

“I didn’t just help with Armageddon, this whole thing wouldn’t have gone through if it weren’t for me,” Crowley replies. His tone is casual, but there’s a tightness to it that Aziraphale wonders if anyone but him notices. “And he-” he jerks a thumb at Aziraphale, “Very nearly ruined everything. He’s made my job as painful as possible for the past six millennia. So I’m going to see to his torture personally. It’s only fair.” He smiles, an expression without a shred of joy in it, only malice. It chills Aziraphale to his core; that look doesn’t belong on Crowley’s face, Crowley who was always a little bit of a good person, any more than the earth belongs near a black hole.

The guard demon, on the other hand, seems unbothered. “Look,” Crowley adds, in a low voice. “After what I pulled to get this to work out for us, Lucifer himself owes me a favor. I’m calling it in. And I could ask for a seat on the Dark Council, and the power to make the lives of everyone who ever inconvenienced me extremely difficult- Well, they might give me that anyway.” The guard flinches. “So all I’m asking for is the chance to pay back six thousand years of torture. Which really won’t hurt you in the least. I’m assuming you don’t want to spend the first century we have control of the universe gouging people’s eyes out in the basement? It’s so cold down there. And mildewy.”

“Well-” the guard is wavering.

“I’ll throw in a good word for you with the boss.”

That does it. The guard steps aside. Crowley snaps his fingers, and the handcuffs fall from Aziraphale’s wrists. Aziraphale is reminded of another time, another prison, although that situation feels so distant now it’s almost unreal.

Crowley takes a single, menacing step forward.

Up close, he looks even more of a wreck. His sleeve isn’t just torn, it’s torn and charred, enough that Aziraphale thinks he must have blocked a blow from a flaming sword with his shoulder. There’s a hairline fracture in the corner of his sunglasses that he doesn’t seem to have noticed. 

And he’s _alive_. Aziraphale wonders if he’ll ever stop being relieved about that. 

Crowley’s staring at him blankly. He’s tensed up like a wire stretched to the breaking point, fists clenched so hard his nails must be leaving visible imprints in his skin. Aziraphale, for his part, is frozen, his worst fear- the entirety of Heaven and Hell seeing him and Crowley together- suddenly and unexpectedly becoming a reality.

He meets Crowley’s eyes through the sunglasses. The second he does, Crowley’s blank expression shatters, replaced by a wave of relief, which very quickly turns to resolve. He reaches for Aziraphale’s arm, gingerly, like he’s afraid Aziraphale will fade or flinch away, and the gentle pressure of his fingers against Aziraphale’s wrist is an anchor in the storm surrounding them, and suddenly they’re clinging to each other.

Crowley’s shoulders are shaking, he’s got one arm locked around Aziraphale’s waist, he’s holding onto Aziraphale so tight that God Herself would have trouble separating them, and Aziraphale never wants to move from this spot.

“Are you alright?” Crowley asks Aziraphale quietly.

“Better now,” Aziraphale returns, just as quiet. There are tears prickling in his eyes, but his heart feels lighter than it had since the bandstand. “Missed most of the fighting. Looking for you.”

A tiny sob is wrenched out of Crowley’s chest at that, and he somehow manages to pull Aziraphale even closer. “You found me,” he says wetly. “Just- took a bit.”

Aziraphale tries to return the embrace, but his arm grazes Crowley’s injured soldier and Crowley lets out an extremely snakelike hiss of pain.

“Here, let me,” Aziraphale soothes. He threads their fingers together, miracling the wound away as he does so. Crowley looks starstruck. He rests his forehead against Aziraphale’s, and warmth infuses Aziraphale’s body as all the tiny scrapes he’d put out of his mind heal.

“Traitor,” Gabriel snarls behind him, wrenching Aziraphale back to the present. He’s joined by a quiet murmur of assent from the imprisoned angels.

Aziraphale finds, thrillingly, that he doesn’t care. Not with Crowley holding him, not with the phrase _we’re on our own side_ suddenly roaring in his ears, not with the knowledge that after all that, after everything, he’d been _right_ \- Not while he’s been thinking that maybe the Right Thing to Do and the right thing to do are often two very different things.

So he does the right thing; he leans in and kisses Crowley with all the emotion he’s shoved aside for centuries now. Crowley jolts a little in surprise, but before Aziraphale can pull away he’s returning the kiss desperately, hands scrabbling at Aziraphale’s clothes until he manages to snake one arm under Aziraphale’s shirt, like he needs to be as close to him as possible. Crowley kisses recklessly, hungrily, like he was afraid he’d never get the chance, afraid if he stops now it will all dissolve- Aziraphale kisses back, threading one hand through his hair, trying to tell him _it’s alright. It’s alright. I’m here. I’m not leaving_ , without words.

It doesn’t last, of course. They stumble a few steps, knock into the spear-wielding demon, and the spell is broken. The demon in question is staring at them with the expression of a human watching a troupe of flying sheep who are also ballerinas. “Excuse me,” Crowley says to her. She does not reply.

Aziraphale manages to tear his gaze from Crowley (a difficult task- his hair is mussed and his cheeks are tinged pink and even the fact that he’s grimacing at the spear-demon can’t obscure the sheer _delight_ on his face, and he’s _alive_ ). What seems like the entire population of Heaven and Hell is staring at them, with similar expressions to the spear demon. Except Gabriel, whose expression is tinged with complicated layers of horror and chagrin. And, he notices, Uriel, who is clearly having second thoughts about Aziraphale’s “boyfriend in the dark glasses.”

“Well,” Crowley says, his voice echoing oddly in the complete, stunned silence. “We’re going to, um, leave now. Ciao.” And he drags Aziraphale from the room. Aziraphale offers a benevolent smile over his shoulder as he leaves.

No one follows them.

Crowley doesn’t speak again until they’ve made their way through what feels like half of Hell, all of it crowded, dirty, and poorly lit, and shoved Aziraphale through a heavy metal door with a tiny, barred window in the top of it.[2] The room they end up in is still dark, and awful, but a sight nicer than most of Hell. It’s clean, or as clean as this place could possibly get, and the desk and chair in the middle of the office are similarly tidy, if battered. There’s a plant on the desk, sitting under an expensive-looking lamp.

“We’re in-”

“My office,” Crowley says, dropping Aziraphale’s hand and rounding the desk to rifle through its drawers. “They’ll probably look here first but I left something I need-”

“They’re going to be coming after you, now,” Aziraphale says, “You could’ve been safe, but you-” _You saved me. Again._

“They were going to be coming for me anyway,” Crowley says, “Soon as Hastur gets himself out of my answering machine he’s going to tell everyone I betrayed Hell and killed another demon, that’s not the sort of thing they look highly on.”

There’s a story there, one Aziraphale doesn’t think they have time for. “Still,” he says, stiltedly, “You came back for me. Thank you.”

Crowley stops rummaging around in his desk and looks up at Aziraphale. “I never would have left without you,” he says, and it’s not just a statement of fact, it’s a vow. Aziraphale blinks dazedly, a little lost in the weight of what that means.

And then, utterly lost in the guilt of the fact that he’d been the one to leave Crowley. He’d been the one to turn to Heaven instead of his closest friend, his _partner_.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice more choked than he means it to be. Crowley freezes midway through pulling a spray bottle from his desk. “I thought- I thought I could save everyone. I thought, if I could just get the right people to listen, we could stop all this and everything would be _fine_. But none of them cared, and all I accomplished was abandoning you-”

“Don’t apologize,” Crowley says. The words are stilted but his expression is sincere. “They do a number on you up there, I know from experience. Don’t blame yourself.”

“Still. I am sorry,” Aziraphale says. Crowley shrugs him off, but Aziraphale notices a contented half-smile on his lips as he turns back to the desk, and the knot of guilt in his chest loosens.

“Like I said,” Crowley tells the desk, “Nothing to apologize for.” He pulls something out of the drawer and hands it out to Aziraphale, avoiding his eyes. “I saved a book from your shop.”

For a moment, the word ‘saved’ is all that registers in Aziraphale’s mind. Of course, his shop would be destroyed- the world had ended- but it’s still devastating to think about. Then his eyes land on the cover of the book. A very familiar cover, one he’d stared at for a straight half hour after finding it in the back of Crowley’s car. _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch._

“You-” he says, wonderingly, reaching out to trace his fingers across the word ‘Accurate,’ “You’re incredible.”

“Thanks,” Crowley mumbles, blushing.

“Crowley, we can- we can use this to fix things!” It’s a tentative, foolish hope, but Aziraphale will gladly take that over no hope at all. He leans across the desk to pull Crowley into a brief kiss, before returning to the book, picking it up and thumbing through its pages reverently. “This has information about the Antichrist, we can find him and- and stop this somehow.” The initial ray of hope bleeds out of him, replaced by a sense of obligation- _if nobody’s going to end Armageddon, we need to do it ourselves._ “We have to fix this,” he says aloud, solemnly, meeting Crowley’s eyes.

Crowley gazes back, equally serious. The sound of his thoughts whirling is almost audible. For a moment, Aziraphale thinks he’s going to argue, but his voice is soft as he says, “We do.” He picks up the spray bottle and walks over to Aziraphale. “But let’s focus on getting out of here first?”

Crowley offers Aziraphale his hand with a crooked grin. Aziraphale takes it.

They leave Crowley’s office hand in hand, checking outside the door for demons. As far as they can tell, they’re not being followed. Yet. Crowley starts down the hallway at a brisk pace, still slow enough that they don’t look like they’re running. “We don’t want to try for the main exit,” he whispers in Aziraphale’s ear as they walk, “Too conspicuous. And we’ve got to get you a body somehow. I’m going to double back-”

“Wait!” Aziraphale turns toward the sound, trying to shove Crowley out of the way. Crowley does the same, branding the spray bottle, so they end up side by side, arms awkwardly braced in front of each other.

They’re facing off against two demons, one with batlike ears and solid black eyes, the other with two sets of enormous, twisting horns. Behind them, half-hidden by the cramped nature of the hallway, is a tall angel with golden freckles across the bridge of her nose. “Wait,” the bat demon says again, clearly trying to sound forceful and in control of the situation but somewhat missing the mark, “We’re coming with you.”

Aziraphale stares at them, utterly bewildered. Crowley lets the spray bottle drop a little.

“You’re going to need more than the two of you to do… whatever it is you’re doing, right? We want in.”

“…Why?” Crowley asks, sounding just as confused as Aziraphale feels.

“We were in the hall when you two kissed,” the horned demon butts in. “And we- well, we- we’ve been working together since 3712, and-” they trail off, blushing so vividly Aziraphale wonders if they might legitimately catch fire.

The bat demon reaches over and grabs their hand, jutting her chin out like she’s daring Aziraphale and Crowley to pick a fight. “We’re together. In a romance sense. Or whatever. And we want to work with you.”

“Why? You control the world now, you don’t have anything to gain by working with us.” Aziraphale says.

“Somehow I doubt a world run by Lucifer will have much space for 'loving other individuals',” the horned demon says ruefully. Crowley laughs in agreement. "We’ve got everything to gain. Not that a world run by your lot would be much better."

The latter comment is directed at the angel behind them, who gives an indignant, "Excuse me!" only to trail off and trail off and admit, "you've got me there." 

“Why are you here, then?” Crowley asks the angel.

“I saw my chance to slip off when they both left. I should probably be trying to free other angels and lead a counterattack but frankly, following them seemed like the better option. Guess that makes me a pretty shit angel, but there you have it.” She laughs. “I’m a shit angel!” she repeats, delighted.

Then she freezes in place, along with the two demons. Aziraphale turns to Crowley, who is grimacing slightly. “Can’t keep this up too long, someone’ll notice. We trusting them?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says immediately.

“You’re sure it’s not a trick?”

“You really think Heaven’s that clever?” Crowley grins at him and snaps his fingers. “Or Hell, for that matter,” Aziraphale mutters as time restarts.

“You can come,” Crowley says, to the demons and angel. The demons sag briefly against each other in relief, while the angel looks momentarily giddy. “But if you turn on us we kill you.”

“Still a better deal than we’d get otherwise,” the horned demon says, and the other two nod. “So what’s the plan?”

“We get out of here, first of all,” Crowley says, taking Aziraphale’s hand again. “And then…” he trails off, waiting for Aziraphale to speak.

“We’re going to find the antichrist.”

* * *

1Aziraphale was beginning to realize that Crowley may actually have been _downplaying_ the level of disorganization and deliberate redundancy in hell’s bureaucracy. [Return]

2No one stops them. Apparently ‘demon dragging an angel through hell’ is a sight commonplace enough that it can be ignored. [Return]

**Author's Note:**

> There is a very long sequel to this fic that I could theoretically write, where Aziraphale and Crowley become the leaders of a small community of angels and demons who saw/heard about The Kiss and decided they also wanted to have their own side. Meanwhile the Them (including Adam), Newt, and Anathema are trying to fix the end of the world. I don’t currently have the time/inspiration to write that fic, but if I do end up writing it in the future, it’ll have a happy ending. I don’t know if that makes the openness of this ending any better? Hopefully it does. 
> 
> I used [this](https://teekettle.tumblr.com/post/126920988304/live-example-my-ao3-skins-while-ao3-has-a) tutorial for the footnotes.
> 
> Title from ["Dear God"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p554R-Jq43A) by XTC, a song that really does not fit the mood of this fic at all, aside from the verse that line's in. Kinda.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
